


Tell Me I’m Your National Anthem

by cinnamon_skull



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, M/M, Masturbation, Nipple Piercings, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 09:50:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7679737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamon_skull/pseuds/cinnamon_skull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason’s away on business. Tim sends him a video to remind him what he’s missing. </p><p>Or: the one with the nipple piercing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me I’m Your National Anthem

**Author's Note:**

> My first entry for JaytimWeek2016! Tons of thanks to TK who acted as my muse and planted this idea in my head after we visited the thirst pond and found some suggestive photos.
> 
> Prompt: Photography

 

Jason hated the tropics. There was nothing pleasurable about air thick and humid enough to leave even the lightest of his shirts clinging damply to his skin within minutes. When he had the time — and access to a hotel room with a working plumbing system — he found himself taking several showers a day for relief. Even then, the water only stayed cold for a few precious seconds before turning tepid and leaving him more uncomfortable than refreshed.

He missed Gotham.

He missed the purr of his bike as he rode past dusk to the outskirts of town, where the street lamps flickered and overgrown grass fields bowed underneath the heavy touch of a summer breeze. Sometimes, on a good night, fire flies would light up the cherry red paint of his bike. If he squeezed his eyes shut tight enough he could almost taste the sulfur on the back of his tongue from the cheap firecrackers he used to set off with the other neighborhood kids all those years ago.

Alfred’s cooking was another thing he missed. And a cold beer beneath the flickering neon sign of his favorite, hole-in-wall bar. Roy’s drunken promises and elaborate plans, the weight of his arm slung protectively around Jason’s shoulders as he ordered another round. The pretty bartender’s shy smile as she tucked a strand of pink hair behind a pierced ear.

And the crime. None of this crazy cat-and-mouse shit on the streets of Gotham. Straight, machine gun shooters and crooked dealers with golden teeth, but no one cared enough to try very hard to mask the wickedness. Besides, when they did, Jason had B and Dick to help. The bloodied pavement beneath Jason’s feet always felt sure and familiar. Even the soothing sounds of bones snapping and his safety clicking were a welcome reminder of his home.

And Tim.

It has been two months already, eight weeks of backpacking through humid jungles in South America tracking his mark, a drug lord who was feeding Gotham gangs heroin laced with a new strain of fear toxin potent enough to kill one out of every three users. And now, there were quicksand pits, and much worse, waiting at every turn.

Tonight, he was staying at a three-star hotel that boasted wifi on the cover of a colorful, plastic keycard envelope with his room number scrawled in the upper righthand corner. A tired looking woman had slid it over the smooth marble as she whispered something about late night drinks and early morning breakfast on the veranda in soft Portuguese. He hadn’t thought much of it then, intent on taking a leisurely hour-long shower to wash off the days of humidity clinging to his skin.

Later, after checking the security on his room several times, he called down to the front desk to have a bottle of tequila sent to his room. He drank several glasses while he cleaned his guns.

It was a few hours later when Jason was laid out in bed, dressed only in his boxers, staring up at a noisy ceiling fan — that he remembered about the wifi. His fingers felt a little heavy from half a bottle of rich tequila as he reached for his backpack and fished out a refurbished smartphone he’d picked up at a convenience store just off the tarmac. It had been easy to slide in his own WE SIM card, load up his contacts and firewall.

He flicked its on switch and waited for the screen to boot up. He wasn’t sure if there would actually be wifi, but maybe the cell service was better in this part of town — all that green for miles usually signaled a dead zone, and Jason was flying low enough under the radar that a high-tech satellite phone or tablet would be too risky in tipping off his mark.

There was a cool breeze coming through the window now, and the sound of laughter from people outside filtered softly into the room. Several messages blinked onto his screen all at once, and Jason took his time listening and reading them all.

A short, curt message from B that there would be a package waiting for him at the next drop off location, a rundown city center twenty miles away.

A curt text from Damian asking for his xbox live password. Jason knew he wasn’t really asking about something so trivial — what Damian really wanted to know was if he could stay at one of Jason’s safehouses, probably to get away from B for a few days. He texted back his reply, hoping it wasn’t too late.

Next, an image from Kori of her and Roy, smiling at the camera with ice cream all over their faces and some beach sprawling out behind them. We miss you, she’d captioned at the bottom.

Another photo popped up from Dick with his arm slung around an affronted-looking Alfred, the makings of an omelette spilling out of a stainless steel bowl. Dick held up one hand in a lame peace sign, and Jason noticed he was wearing the _Your Opinion Wasn’t in the Recipe_ apron he’d brought his eldest brother last Christmas, despite his awful, accident-prone cooking.

Next, a drunk text from Roy that read _rembbr the pickk les!_ with far too many conflicting emojis for Jason to make much sense of what he’d meant.

Jason felt lighter than he had in weeks, though he would never admit out loud how much he missed his dysfunctional family.

One more left. Jason scrolled down to the first message he’d missed. He held the phone a little more tightly when he saw who it was from.

Tim.

Jason swallowed before sliding the message open. It was an email with an attachment and a single line underneath: 

_Miss you._

His thumb hovered over the attachment link for only a second before he clicked. He wondered if the wifi would be terrible enough to make him give up, but after a few agonizing moments where his mind wandered down all sorts of dangerous paths, the image finally finished loading.

When it did, Jason had to blink a few times and take several calming, deep breaths. He brought the phone closer to his face, traced the image with his fingertips to make sure he was really seeing what he thought he was.

_Hell._

Tim had sent him a picture, the camera angled down to his chest and slightly crooked, so that Jason couldn’t see his face. But he knew it was Tim, could tell by the shape of his hands and the dirty, fraying headphone cords wound around his neck. In the photo, Tim held up a black shirt high enough to reveal half his chest and the smooth expanse of skin over his heart. He must have been home, because Jason recognized Tim’s shirt as one of his old v-necks with several holes at the collar hilt. And _there_ , right in the center of the photo was Tim’s nipple.

Rose pink and dusted with faint freckles, and Jason’s mind went to every night he’d spent with his lips wrapped around one of those perfect peaks, feeling the beat of Tim’s heart ramming up against his chest to meet every unforgiving pull of Jason’s mouth. And _god_ , the sounds Tim made, the feel of his nails scraping against Jason’s scalp when he used his teeth.

And now, there was a simple, silver bar threaded through the middle of Tim’s nipple.

Had he done it on a whim? Had Roy, coming off a bender with too much adrenaline pumping through his system, dared Tim? Where had he gotten it done, and who’d been the one to do it?

Jason clutched the phone in his hands and realized that he was embarrassingly, achingly hard. He hadn’t talked to Tim in over a month and this was what he’d decided to tease him with? Tim’s face was out of frame, but Jason could see him smirking in his mind, one eyebrow raised in challenge and his lips quirked in a crooked smile.

He laid the phone on the mattress.

After taking several more unsteady breaths that did little to calm his racing pulse, Jason rubbed his face and sighed into his hands.

He wanted to say he had stronger willpower, but Tim had a tendency to break all of Jason’s rules. Just the idea of Tim doing _that_ to himself had him scrambling to pick the phone back up. He could just make out the faint scar beneath the collar of Tim’s shirt and the long, dark pink one curling above his ribs near the bottom of the photo.

Jason scrolled through the message again to see if there was anything he might have missed the first time. From the date, it looked like Tim had sent it a little over a week ago. Jason hovered over Tim’s message, trying to decipher the hidden meaning and realized with a jolt that one of the words was hyperlinked.

Jason swallowed, hard, and clicked.

A video started to load.

The screen was dark and grainy before Tim’s face focused. For a moment, there was nothing but Tim’s dark eyes and curved lips, and the slim, creamy expanse of his throat. A flyway piece of hair stuck to Tim’s bottom lip, before he brushed it away with an impatient finger.

He moved the recording device — Jason could only assume it was his phone — and his hand jostled the screen again before he settled it in a position he was happy with, before leaning away. The phone’s sound hissed for a minute before everyone went quiet and clear.

“There,” Tim said, staring into the camera and giving Jason one of his crooked smiles. Now, he could hear that there was music playing softly in the background, something low and sultry, no doubt one of Tim's obscure bands.

On screen, Tim was momentarily distracted by a ping on his laptop, and Jason took the opportunity to look his fill. It was hard to tell from the angle, but he thought Tim was wearing one of his white waffle Henleys, the sleeves bunched up around his forearms and folded several times so Tim could type out some message on the screen.

He hadn’t noticed it earlier, but there was a nice flush high on Tim’s cheeks, which meant — ah, _there_ , in the corner of the screen Jason could just make out the shape of a half-full bottle of amber liquid, probably one of Tim’s fancy, expensive cognacs that he pilfered from Bruce’s stash every few months after a visit to the manor.

“War reparations,” he’d always say to Jason, with a cheeky grin as he stuffed the bottle under his sweater.

 _Rich boy_ , Jason thought, fondly.

Tim shifted, snapping the laptop lid shut before stretching his arms up over his head, and Jason was drawn to the tantalizing patch of stomach revealed on the upswing. His cock took that as an invitation to twitch in his lap, reminding him just how desperate he was to feel Tim against him again.

Two months was far too long a time to go without touching his lips to every inch of Tim’s skin.

At that precise moment, Tim grinned into the camera and fanned himself with his hands. “Hot in here, Jay,” he said quietly, the words warm on his tongue, and Jason felt them almost like a sun-lit breeze against his cheek.

He ran his hands down his chest and then quickly removed his shirt with no tactical skill or measured teasing, his hair frizzing up in the process with static electricity. The movement was just so carelessly Tim that Jason’s heart ached in his chest.

But then Jason caught the same pink flush from earlier dipping down Tim’s neck and settling across the center of his chest, and he forgot all about Tim’s clumsiness.

Tim’s eyes found the camera, and Jason, again. He held his gaze, hooded and bright, and full of wondrous promise. "Wish you were home."

Then Tim laughed and pushed away from the worktable, and Jason watched him wander off screen. His bare legs looked strong and lean in the blue-warm lighting, and Jason's blood zinged a little when he watched Tim absently rub himself through the tight material of his boxers.

After a few minutes of rummaging around the room, he came back with a armful of supplies and sat down on a taller bar stool. Jason could see more of his chest and the jut of his hipbones, and that Tim was half-hard.

Jason’s eyes were drawn away by a sudden snap, as Tim pulled on a pair of black latex gloves he stole from Jason’s toolchest in the garage. It was a little big on him, gathering around his wrists and wrinkling near the tips of his fingers.

“See, Jay,” Tim said, as he pulled a second glove into place. “We always talk about this. And I mean, one of us had to go through with it sooner or later, right?”

He pulled a nearly empty glass into the frame and downed the rest of the amber liquid before wiping his mouth with his forearm. Jason’s eyes followed the damp line it left on his skin and tried to remember what in the world Tim was talking about.

“I mean, your fine ass is always off on some other continent,” Tim was talking again, only a little muffled with the alcohol on his tongue. “So I guess our little game of chicken is finally coming to an end."

Jason could tell Tim was just buzzed enough to take the edge off. Jason’s fist tightened around the phone, because he knew exactly how warm and touchy Tim got when he drank. If they were together, Jason would have pushed his face into Tim’s neck to breathe him in, feel the slow thud of his pulse against his lips.

"Which makes you,” Tim continued, talking as he laid out a towel on the table. “The chicken."

Tim fiddled with something on the towel, and then he leaned over the table, so that all Jason could see was his face, and his dewy skin and the fierce look in his eyes.

"Just kidding, I love you,” Tim said all in a rush, like it burned his lungs to say it when Jason was so far away. “Hurry home so I can kick that _perfect_ ass.”

His voice faded at the end, but Jason could clearly see him mouth the words “And then ride your face,” into the video recorder. The soundless words had an instant effect, and Jason shivered, hot all over with the ghost of Tim’s thighs firmly planted on either side of his face. It was one of their favorite positions, and when Tim was pressing down on Jason’s lips and tongue, he often thought he could die happy, buried in the feel and sounds of Tim getting off.

When he could see the screen again instead of the soft skin and straining muscles of Tim’s perfect thighs in his memory, Jason watched Tim grab a bottle off the table and douse a cotton pad — and for the first time, the mystery started to unravel. When Tim took a thin needle off the table and applied the rubbing alcohol to the surface, Jason’s vision began to narrow. He watched Tim pull a pair of skinny, metal clamps from the table and do the same thing.

Jason knew what was coming next.

Tim grabbed another cotton ball full of antiseptic and smeared it over the skin of his right nipple. _“Cold,”_ he hissed almost immediately, and then lifted his eyes to meet Jason’s again across miles and miles of separation.

He spent some time pinching his nipple between his gloved fingers, his brows drawn together in concentration and mumbling softly to himself, like he was measuring the space exactly. Knowing Tim, he had several reasons for piercing it himself, least of all this taunting video for Jason. That was only a benefit. Mostly, he knew, Tim loathed the idea of giving up control of his body to someone else (other than Jason, and wasn’t _that_ a story — several glorious, unforgettable stories — for another time), and that he wouldn’t trust anyone to get it perfectly, meticulously center.

The other reason was that Tim liked a little pain — didn’t they all, little fucked up soldiers for the man in the mask — and wouldn’t a hard-on be just a _little_ awkward at the downtown tattoo parlour where Roy liked to visit and sneak shots from the staff’s after-hours stock of Jack. But Jason could see the shape of Tim’s arousal pressing up from his boxers and into the tight skin of his stomach, and that sight alone made Jason groan and press a palm against his own rock hard cock.

Tim used the metal clamps to pinch the skin around his turgid nipple with one hand and his other reached down to grab the needle off the table. He took a deep breath and pressed the tip of the needle to his skin, and Jason watched his shoulders quiver in a butterfly-effect wave of pleasure. He glanced up at Jason before beginning a steady push. He was grinning again, a manic, low-shining gleam in his turned-on face.

"Fuck. Fuck. _FUCK_ ," he grunted out against a clenched jaw, his eyes watching the slow push to make sure everything stayed even. The tendons in his neck stood out and the sinewy muscles of his forearm were pulled taut.

“I hope you appreciate this, Jay,” Tim said, Jason’s name breaking off into a guttural moan as he pressed the needle further through his skin until it broke through to the other side. “Fuck, that hurt.”

A muscle in Tim’s jaw ticked as he sat back, blinking. The heaviness of his lids gave him away, and Jason imagined that Tim’s toes were curling under the table as he took deep, steadying breaths, pushing his shoulders down to keep himself from tensing. “Don’t think you’re getting off easy, Jason, we’re doing you when I get home.”

The threat mixed with the heady weight of Tim’s voice made Jason grip himself tighter, made him push his stupid boxers down to get a hand around himself. His eyes were glued to Tim and his every movement, from the flutter of his lashes to the tendons in his neck working as he swallowed down some more cognac straight from the fancy crystal.

Next, Tim pulled a tiny, silver rod from the table, held it up close to the camera so Jason could see the shape of the simple bar piercing he’d chosen. He snapped off the excess ends of the needle and readied himself for the next bit of pain.

“One, _two —_ ”

He didn’t make it to three as he quickly and carefully pressed the metal rod to one of the plastic ends, drawing it carefully back through his pierced fleshed before twisting a small ball-cap onto the opposite end.

Tim's gaze fell back to the camera, and he let out a breath he'd obviously been holding. "There. That wasn't so bad, right?"

He looked down at his body and grinned stupidly. "Yeah...that wasn't so bad. Looks good, right babe?" His smile faded a little, "Wish you were here to enjoy it, too.”

Jason’s hand stilled, and he was caught in the burning of Tim’s stare, until his features turned sharp. “But, since this is the 21st century, I suppose we could make something of it.”

Tim leaned back again, stretched out his chest and drew Jason’s eyes down to the tent in his boxers, still achingly hard and waiting for attention even after the pain of the piercing.

Probably because of it.

 _"Tim,"_ Jason moaned into the night air, as he tightened his fist around himself.

There wasn’t any finesse to the way Tim palmed his cock through the material of his boxers, but the rawness of it made everything that much hotter. Jason eyes stuck to the slow expanse of skin Tim exposed inch by inch until he was slowly fisting himself through loose fingers.

Jason took hold of himself again, matching Tim’s movements stroke for stroke. Rough, rasping gasps escaped Tim’s mouth, intensified by the sparse room and the phone’s shitty sound quality, and Jason felt a familiar heat coiling low in his gut.

All the teasing had abandoned Tim’s face, and he was left looking hunted and hungry for it, the way his eyes found the screen and searched for Jason’s face behind it, longed for the echo of his own moans.

Tim was fucking up into his tight fist and his other hand slid up his chest, and Jason knew what he was going to do before he did it. Still, molten-heat laced through his body as he watched Tim tug sharply at the new piercing, and the burning, painful-pleasure was just enough to send Tim over the edge.

He came with Jason’s name on his lips and thick, ropey strands of come coating his fingers and stomach, shining dimly in the low-lit room. Jason followed quickly, his own wave echoing Tim’s like they were two shorelines sharing one ocean.

Tim was relaxed as he stared into the camera, eyes hooded and bones pliant beneath the aftershocks of his orgasm. “See you soon,” he said, before flicking off the phone.

Jason had exactly enough energy to type out a response to Tim.

_I love you. I’ll get a matching one when I get home … if you’ll do it for me._

Seven more days, Jason thought.

And he’d be home.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Visit my at Jayskulll/cinnamonskull on tumblr for my JayTim fun. Thank you to Kim for making the tag and TK for doing such amazing work as part of mod'ing this week.


End file.
